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I got to try an AlterG (Read 407 times)

AnneCA


    And it was COOL.  Seriously cool. 

     

    A local physical therapy practice offered up their facilities as the meeting point for the local running club's regular Saturday morning run this week, and had an open house for us.  Nice bit of marketing for them, I suppose, and they let us try their equipment, including their AlterG "zero gravity" treadmill. 

     

    It's not actually weightless, of course.  It's a treadmill with a big plastic tent over it, up to the handrails.  You wear a pair of neoprene shorts that zips into a hole in the middle of tent.  It calibrates, then pumps the tent full of air, and you feel lifted up by the shorts, sort of like a harness.  And you run. 

     

    I ran for a little at 75% and 65% of my bodyweight, and it felt incredible.  I was cruising along at 10k pace feeling like I was running a slow training run, and my heartrate reflected that.  It's enough weight that, on the one hand, it does feel like running, but,on the other hand, you don't feel any impact.  They use it mainly for rehabbing, but the PT said it was great for training too, to get you used to that kind of turnover, what that goal pace feels like.  I don't know.  When I went outside and ran home, I very quickly discovered that I didn't actually weigh 90 pounds. 

    zoom-zoom


    rectumdamnnearkilledem

      You know, something like that would probably be a better motivator for weight loss than just about anything.  I'd like to lose about 15% of my bodyweight...I'd love to feel what running at 85% of my current weight would feel like.  I think really seeing what that would do for my pace would go farther than the promise of smaller clothes and more attractive race pics. Wink

      Getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to

      remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.    

           ~ Sarah Kay


      A Saucy Wench

        Oh I would sooooo love to try one of those.  I know they have one at Nike for the elites to train on.  Although I hear for everyone, but especially guys, it gets quite uncomfortable at lower body weight%.  Something about being suspended by your crotch.  One of the Nike runners was giving a talk and she trained on one for a huge % of her runs coming back from a stress fracture.

         

         

        You think if I suspended a harness from my ceiling I could achieve the same thing?

        I have become Death, the destroyer of electronic gadgets

         

        "When I got too tired to run anymore I just pretended I wasnt tired and kept running anyway" - dd, age 7